Developing Countries News

Fishermen in the Dili district of Timor-Leste have found an extra perk of the insecticide added to their mosquito bed nets: the chemicals act as a Taser for shrimp. The…

KAMPOT, Cambodia — As the Trapeang Sangke estuary opens up into the Gulf of Thailand, the dense green mangroves that line its edges taper off in stages, from thick, full-grown…

PORT BERGÉ, Madagascar — Karimo and Célice could scarcely believe their luck. Four years of bumper corn harvests have allowed the husband and wife, who each go by a single…

MAROANTSETRA, Madagascar — Two years ago, a group of foreigners visited Marovovonana, the riverside village where Amélin Toto Arison runs a general store, to make a presentation about carbon. Arison…

BEHELOKE BAS, Madagascar — For a few days each year, fishermen here can travel back in time. When octopus season opens on a new part of the reef every three…

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Nothing says patience quite like tromping around wet woods in the middle of the night to collar bats and track them back to their daytime roosts. And…

By the middle of the century most of the world’s projected population of 9.5 billion people will be living in the Tropics, including almost two-thirds of its children. The region…

A protest of a planned coal-fired power plant in Bangladesh turned sour on Thursday, when police reportedly confronted marchers with tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons in the capital…

Climate change publications are geographically imbalanced, according to a recent study published in Global Environmental Change. Researchers from Denmark and Brazil analyzed over 15,000 scientific publications on climate change published…

ith demand for seafood increasing and numerous fish species declining due to overfishing and other threats, scientists are proposing a seemingly drastic solution: close the high seas to fishing and…

A fishing boat off the coast of the Malaysian state of Sabah. Photo by: Rhett Butler. Consumers in the developed world want sustainably sourced seafood and increasingly retailers like Walmart…

Straw-colored fruit bat (Eidolon helvum) at the Zoological Garden Berlin, Germany. This species, along with other fruit bats, is present in the Ebola impacted area and may have been a…

For those living either north or south of the tropics, images of this green ring around the Earth's equator often include verdant rainforests, exotic animals, and unchanging weather; but they…

The Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, has pledged $10 million [see note below] to combat poaching in Africa during a visit to the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa. The fund…

Verreaux's Sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi), listed as Vulnerable, in a heated chase. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Due to the wonderful idiosyncrasies of evolution, there is one country on Earth that…

In 2011, the top 11 richest carbon emitters spent an estimated $74 billion on fossil fuel subsidies, or seven times the amount spent on fast-track climate financing to developing nations,…

Colombia rules against multinational corporation that demanded disciplining of environment officials. Colombian authorities have ruled that local environmental officials acted correctly in ordering South African mining giant AngloGold Ashanti to…

As Peru's legislature debates the merits of building the Purús highway through the Amazon rainforest, a new report by Global Witness alleges that the project has been aggressively pushed by…

Home to giant catfish and stingrays, feeding over 60 million people, and with the largest abundance of freshwater fish in the world, the Mekong River, and its numerous tributaries, brings…

A survey late last year found that the Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis) population has been cut in half in just six years. During a 44-day survey, experts estimated…

One kilometer off the Philippine island of Palawan lies the Rasa Island Wildlife Sanctuary; here forest grows unimpeded from a coral island surrounded by mangroves and coral reefs. Although tiny,…

Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam under construction. Photo courtesy of Robin Oisín Llewellyn. A Ngäbe indigenous Panamanian, Onesimo Rodriguez, opposing the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam project was killed last Friday evening…

Organic vegetables for sale in Argentina. Photo by: René Piamonte. The global farmland area certified organic has expanded more than threefold to 37 million hectares since 1999, according to new…

Bhagwat Saw, 69, in hospital after he was diagnosed with pneumoconiosis. He has been working as a coal loader for over 40 years. © Peter Caton / Greenpeace. India's dependence…

Rainforest in Sabah, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A new video highlights the work and drive of renewable energy proponents at the inaugural meeting…

A fence keeps locals from their traditional lands in Liberia, where Sime Darby has planted a contested palm oil plantation. Photo courtesy of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). Investing…

Clearing of trees in a concession area of Herakles Farm’s area for a palm oil plantation. Greenpeace says these clearings are illegal since Herakles' lease has not been given final…

Gaysay Grasslands in Bale Mountains National Park. Photo courtesy of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS). There is a place in the world where wolves live almost entirely off mountain rodents,…

Lesser flamingoes in Kenya. One third of the world's lesser flamingoes nest in Tanzania's Lake Natron. Photo by: Steve Garvie. In a choice between flamingoes and a soda ash plant,…

Kenyir Wildlife Corridor in northeast Malaysia is teeming with wildlife: elephants, gibbons, tigers, tapirs, and even black panthers (melanistic leopards) have been recorded in the 60 kilometer (37 mile) stretch…